Kendra Flowers, RDH, BSDH, MSDH, CDIPC

Heart to Hands 2027 Submission-Kendra Flowers, RDH, MSDH, CDIPC

Nominee: Kendra Flowers, RDH, MSDH, CDIPC (self-nomination)

The truth about our oral health care system is that it is broken. It waits for disease to show up, then gets paid to fix the damage, and the families with the least access to care carry the most disease.

I started as a pediatric dental assistant, holding the hands of children through treatment that a sealant or a fluoride varnish could have prevented. As a clinical hygienist, I watched patients nod along to home care advice they could not afford to follow. With the Georgia Dental Hygienists' Association, I volunteered and lobbied to expand our scope of practice, because prevention cannot reach people if hygienists are not allowed to deliver it. As Director of Programs and Interim Executive Director at Harmony Health Foundation, I built programs that carried prevention to underserved communities, serving 1,000 people in eight months and raising $10,000 in two.

Dental hygienists are the prevention experts in dentistry. We know which products patients use and which ones end up under the bathroom sink next to the floss they swore they would start using. We know what a family can afford and what fits into a busy appointment. Yet the people who design, test, and price dental products have rarely asked us. The companies building dental innovation and the clinicians using it were having two separate conversations, and patients were caught in the middle.

Change will come through a different lens, a preventive one led by dental hygienists, and the way there is innovation. New products and new ways of delivering care can carry prevention into homes, schools, and communities.

Innovation alone is not enough, because too many products reach the market with weak science and too many good ones are priced out of reach. A product that is not clinically sound does not deserve a hygienist's recommendation. A product only a few families can afford does not fix a broken system.

So, I co-founded Merkaba Strategy & Health Advisors with my business partner, Aimee Vail, RDH, MHA-Ed. Our purpose is simple: put hygienists at the table where dental innovation is shaped, and make sure high quality, scientifically sound products reach every community at a price people can afford.

The goal of all of this is better lives on both sides of the chair. For clinicians, it means tools that save time, protect their bodies, and make their work more rewarding. For patients, it means care that is more comfortable, more effective, and backed by evidence that someone checked before it reached them. When the person who uses the product helps shape it, everyone wins.

My heart has always been with patients and the hygienists who care for them. My hands have moved from the instrument tray to the strategy table, and they are still doing the same work. They are making sure the people who know patients best have a voice in what comes next for dentistry.

Prevention should never be a privilege. It should be the standard.